Early Years and Education
Walker, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. As a child growing up in Spring Run, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and, later, Fredonia, Pennsylvania, he said that he "always wished that I could be the church organist". He began fulfilling his wish while a high school freshman in Fredonia, playing as a substitute church organist at his father's church when the regular organist became ill for a month. He studied at Westminster College, Pennsylvania, and at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where he earned two Master of Music degrees cum laude: organ and church music in 1965 and music theory in 1969. Walker then earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stanford University in 1972. One of his teachers, Robert Lodine, "molded and nurtured" his career, wrote Walker. Herbert Nanney, Professor of Music at Stanford, also had a dominant role in Walker's professional growth.
Read more about this topic: John Walker (organist)
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